Saturday, January 15, 2011

Simonson's Thor Omnibus - A Preview

Looks like Rich Johnston from bleedingcool.com got a preview of same of the pages from the upcoming Thor Omnibus. And I thought I'd "borrow" the images and commentary to let my readers enjoy the preview as well. The colours are absolutely beautiful. Sooooo looking forward to get my filthy little fingers on this incredible book.

The Thor Omnibus - Walt Simonson with its 1192 pages collects Thor #337-355, 357-369, 371-382 as well as Balder the Brave #1-4.

Thor 340 Splash Page. 10 x 15. 1983. Color by Olyoptics.

As pretty much everybody hereabouts knows by now, Marvel Comics is reissuing my run on Thor from the 80s in an Omnibus volume, with new coloring by Steve Oliff and his crew.

Marvel has been kind enough to let me see some of the pages and post this one for your delectation. I, for one, am delighted by what I have seen.

Thor 353. Page 2 and 3. And the next to last word balloon of the page is one of my personal favorites. What a smart-ass! Thor 380. Pages 2 & 3.

A double page spread so it’s a little small here, but still looks pretty cool. IMHO.

Probably the trickiest part of drawing this issue of Thor was managing the problem of scale. I always seem to be giving myself stories to draw matchng foes of rather different sizes, so I’m always wrestling with that problem…. How do you show enough of the big guy without making the little guy so small as to be invisible? Or the little guy big enough so that you still see more than the tip of the big guy’s shoe, metaphorically speaking. That’s one of several reasons I eventually decided to draw this issue as I did, as a series of splash pages. It gave me more room to maneuver, particularly when the bad guy was big enough to encircle the world and the good guy was the size of a man.

Remind me to quit doing that.

Thor Omnibus Cover, round 1. Color by Dave Stewart.

This drawing was done a couple of years back as part of a benefit and then used on the cover of Liberty Comics No 1, the second printing, to benefit the Legal Defense Fund. Dave colored it for that cover.

Thor Omnibus Cover, round 2. 1984. Color by Olyoptics. This was the cover for Thor 350, recolored by Steve Oliff.

Ah... my favorite run on The Mighty Thor. Simonson was simply producing one great issue after another. Even though I have all of the original issues, I am going to get this Omnibus. It's just too cool to pass up.

I am a little confused by the covers... what does round 1 and round 2 mean?

I hate this computer colouring crap. Just looks like puke. Visual vomit. Gradients and flares everywhere. No tonal sensitivity whatsoever. Give me newsprint and manual colour craft over these photoshop knob jockeys any day. This is the complete ruin of a classic run. Get the original issues - it's the only honest option.

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